The Emancipatory Praxis of Ukrainian Canadians (1891–1919) and the Necessity of a Situated Critique

In this essay, I focus on the first wave of [Ukrainian] immigrants who arrived from 1891 to the end of World War I and the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. My purpose is to understand the conditions that compelled these people to challenge exclusionary and exploitative practices, and expose the logic behind the dominant Canadian historical narrative that is so pregnant with the “pioneer myth." ...Four core contributions stem from my application of a situated critique: first, a rediscovery of the emancipatory praxis of Ukrainian Canadians from the era in question; second, a link between the particularities of their struggle to both coeval and current struggles; third, an analytical framework that exposes the reactionary tendencies in select writings about Ukrainian Canadians, and; fourth, an analytical framework that can be adapted to apply to the study of other groups and historical eras. --From author's introduction